Podcasting from the Horrored Halls of Academia

Don’t drink the herbal remedy, don’t eat the mousse because Andrea and Alex are back to talk about Roman Polanski’s 1968 film, Rosemary’s Baby. By looking at filmic techniques, societal changes and our relationship with evil, you’ll see that this is no dream, this is really happening.

Thanks for another great episode! I first came to Rosemary’s Baby with the assumption that it was more like The Omen (the baby was already born and the movie centered more on the baby and his own behavior throughout). I was so pleasantly surprised that it was Rosemary’s experience that was explored, and even moreso that the growing sense of paranoia and claustrophobia was so expertly portrayed. This is just a wonderfully creepy movie, and I really liked all the points you touched on in the podcast. I also appreciate that you brought up the Polanski issue, as sometimes that gets glossed over (my personal rule tends to be that I’ll watch his stuff if it’s on but I won’t pay for it).

I also had a question. Would you be able to tell me the documentary (it sounded like a documentary from what I could tell) from which you played a clip during the episode? It was about a drug taken to get rid of morning sickness and sounded really interesting. Thanks!

Hi, I was wondering if the episode for the Rue Morgue podcast on I Spit On Your Grave was still available. It’s not listed in iTunes and the link provided from the Rue Morgue website brings up a 404 error. I would like to listen to it because I have a love/hate relationship with that film franchise.

Thanks, and I love your show! If you are looking for suggestions, please do another Buffy episode. I could talk and listen to analyses about her all day. And a Hitchcock-themed episode. And Repo! The Genetic Opera. And the Scream franchise. Okay, I promise I’ll stop fan-girling now.

Check out the RM Podcast Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/RueMorguePodcast). Feedback is having to re-upload the episodes to a new RSS feed and he updates on FB when he’s uploaded a new batch. I expect the Spit on Your Grave episodes will be up soon.

Thanks for you suggestions, we’ll add them to the list. I’m not sure we’ll do Scream though because I was on some of the later episodes of the RM Podcast and talked about Scream for three episodes. Or you could check out the Rewatchability podcast where I was on talking about Scream as well. http://www.rewatchability.com/2014/10/30/episode-169-scream/ I still love it but I don’t know if I have anything else to add.

Greetings! Your podcasts are spectacular! I need to stop listening to them while driving my 2 year old to daycare.

As a long time fan of the film, I loved all of your insightful analysis. It hurts my heart though, that you did not acknowledge the awesomeness of Minnie Castevet, the greatest horror villain ever. She would wipe the floor with Freddy or Jason. She is my cougar fantasy.

Any thoughts on the idea that the coven was an inverted representation of 60s radical movements? Youthful Rosemary was pretty much conventional/traditional. Meanwhile, the old people are the ones with alternative spirituality, naked orgies, and committing acts of violence and crime to create some kind of revolution.

I blogged about the remake (it’s in a badly formatted archive). While I did love the Paris setting, the sexy Castevets, and appreciated that Rosemary was a modern woman (especially the nods to issues of reproductive rights), I despised the storytelling. You were shown absolutely everything outside of Rosemary’s POV, right down to Roman converting Guy and Margaux casting a sinister spell with a glowing blue light. I also found Guy to be a wooden, worthless dipshit, devoid of any of the weasely charm of John Cassavetes that made his betrayal all the more shocking.

I am using PocketCasts on Android to listen to the episode and the one that downloads as episode 21 does not feature a Rosemary’s Baby discussion at all. I have a 117 minute Rue Morgue episode discussing I Spit on Your Grave with Andrea and Feedback, with a then response to the comments left for that Rue Morgue episode.

I thought I maybe glossed over a brief discussion, but Alex isn’t in the episode at all, and based on the description, I think something else has downloaded in it’s place.

That’s very strange indeed! We have the Rue Morgue Podcast ep linked in the course notes of our Rosemary’s Baby episode… I guess PocketCasts picked up that link instead of our actual show file. I’ll reach out to them and see if I can get them to fix that.

Bummer! I had to remove the link to that episode of the Rue Morgue Podcast in the course notes to remedy this!

Here’s the link, in case anyone is looking for it:SAVAGE VENGEANCE, episode 32 of the Rue Morgue Podcast. Andrea was a guest to talk about I Spit on Your Grave which turned into a heated debate on the Rue Morgue website. Feedback brought her back to continue the discussion in the Savage Vangeance episode which features a detailed breakdown of the Polanski scandal (1:35).

Many thanks. It’s working fine now. I had to “reset” the Android version of PocketCasts by uninstalling and reinstalling (because I couldn’t find the cache or reset on the app, assuming there is one). But, yes, it’s working fine now. As soon as I realised it wasn’t the right episode playing I kept at it and ended up enjoying the discussion about Savage Vengeance etc anyway.

And Then I’m glad I kept listening to the end as I was reacquainted with a ghost from my Usenet past. I remember The Gore-Met very well from the alt.horror newsgroup where he was variously a wealth of information and the scourge of the newbies. That said, I did enjoy hearing him get much better than he gave in the podcast. In all the time I read his run-ins with the other people in the newsgroup (or got involved in them myself) I never knew such an articulate task-taking as that.